You are very insulting, Orion. I assure you that NONE of that post was "cut and paste" and all of it is original with me. That makes you a liar. You refuse to even look at the evidence. That is what both shroudie and I mean when we state that "You don't read." and what little you do, you fail to apply logic and the rules of evidence to, instead preferring your unsupported opinion.
Because of that, I give your opinion exactly no weigh, Orion, because you are uninformed, ignorant of the research and DELIBERATELY remain so.
"If there's a mystery with two explanations, one of which is "fraud," and the other is "mircale," which should a rational person consider most likely?"
I see you cut and paste your question... same misspelling of "miracle" again. I find it interesting that you demand answers, but you provide none to our questions. You want an answer?
I would come down on the side of "Fraud."
There, does that make you happy?
In fact, about 30 years ago, that is where I started with the mystery that is the Shroud of Turin. However, I would want to prove that Fraud... you don't.
Your position is "I've decided it is a fraud so I can safely ignore the evidence. Your attitude is "Don't bother me with the facts, my mind is made up: it's a Fraud." So you keep bringing up things that have already been disproved, conclusively, and refuse to even look at the evidence of why they have been falsified.
You have proved it to everyone's satisfaction on this thread. You are a twit who's purpose here is disruption, not discussion.
Now that I have answered YOUR question, answer mine. What scientific principle would allow an unrepresentative sample's test results to be applied to the thing it does not represent?
You have claimed authoritative knowledge of the scientific principles. Please enlighten us.